Anti-Biomass Op/Ed Submitted to Seattle Times

Submitted to Shelton Blog by Duff Badgley Mason County Progressive

From: duff@nobiomassburn.org
To: kriley@seattletimes.com; oped@seattletimes.com
Subject: Anti-biomass Op/Ed for Seattle Times
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 15:52:50 -0800

Hello Kate,

Biomass is an urgent, topical issue.

This week, you published a pro-biomass Op/ED by Rep. Jeff Morris. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2013899985_guest11morris.html

Under Equal Time practice, please publish my anti-biomass Op/Ed. My word count is 564. You may not still have my headshot, so I am including it now.

Thanks.

Duff Badgley
Coordinator, No Biomass Burn
Seattle, WA
duff@nobiomassburn.org
www.nobiomassburn.org

STATE BIOMASS INCINERATORS STILL BOUND

TO COMPLY WITH FEDERAL CLIMATE LAW

State biomass incinerators must still comply with federal climate law that requires reporting carbon dioxide emissions as a harmful pollutant. This is important and necessary because 1.5-2.0 million tons of dangerous carbon dioxide would be emitted each year by six incinerators burning forest wood proposed for the Olympic Peninsula and Longview alone. Up to 15 more biomass incinerators are proposed throughout the state, according to the Washington Department of Ecology.

Last week, the EPA announced a 3-year deferral on imposing federal greenhouse gas regulations on biomass incinerators under its Tailoring Rule. But Washington State law requires permits to include “rules..by EPA…with future effective dates”. [WAC 173-401-200(4)]. The Tailoring Rule became final on June 3, 2010.

This combination of federal and state law means the “future effective date” of compliance with the Tailoring Rule has not gone away. It has simply moved back to 2014. So, the permitting process for all proposed biomass incinerators in Washington State must now include analysis of carbon dioxide emissions as a harmful pollutant.

These biomass incinerators incinerators would be carbon dioxide “factories”. One plant proposed by Adage for Mason County would emit 600,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency determined in 2009 that carbon dioxide, and five other human-caused greenhouse gases, pose a significant health threat to the American public.

Fearing toxic and greenhouse gas emissions, citizen groups and environmental organizations have sued to stop three biomass incinerators proposed for Mason County, Jefferson County, and Clallam County. Citing health and environmental concerns, Thurston County has imposed a 12-month moratorium on all types of biomass incinerators.

The EPA itself has already de-bunked the tired argument that burning forest wood is somehow ‘carbon neutral’. The EPA has accepted the overwhelming, peer-reviewed, published science documenting that re-absorption of carbon emissions from burning wood takes centuries and millennia—so long that carbon emissions from burning wood accelerate climate change, and do not retard it.

In its 2009 Endangerment Finding, the EPA wrote:

“Indeed, for a given amount of CO2 released today, about half will be taken up by the oceans and terrestrial vegetation over the next 30 years, a further 30 percent will be removed over a few centuries, and the remaining 20 percent will only slowly decay over time such that it will take many thousands of years to remove from the atmosphere.”-- Federal Register, Vol 74 (April, 2009), P 18899.

Dr. Timothy Searchinger was one of the climate scientists working with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that originally published the assumption of the carbon neutrality of biomass combustion. Searchinger now admits he was wrong.

“…maintaining the exemption for CO2 emitted by bio-energy use under the protocol (IPCC) wrongly treats bio-energy from all biomass sources as carbon neutral.” From: "Fixing a critical climate accounting error," T. D. Searchinger et al., Science, 325:529, October 23, 2009 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5952/527.full.pdf.

The EPA knows biomass incinerators emit vast amounts of dangerous carbon dioxide. Grassroots groups and ordinary citizens across the state know biomass incinerators emit vast amounts of dangerous carbon dioxide.

It’s past time for our elected officials to embrace the science documenting this danger from biomass incineration. It’s past time for elected officials to stop reflexively protecting special economic interests like the Washington timber industry—at the expense of the health and lives of ordinary citizens.

Duff Badgley is coordinator for No Biomass Burn, a statewide group fighting biomass incinerators. He was the 2008 gubernatorial candidate for the Green Party of Washington State.

Duff Badgley
Seattle, WA
duff@nobiomassburn.org
www.nobiomassburn.org